


Static

by Randy_sensei



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game), Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Gang Violence, Gift Fic, My First Work in This Fandom, Violence, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-09-14 10:23:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16911177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Randy_sensei/pseuds/Randy_sensei
Summary: Detroit is crumbling apart from the inside due to turmoil, be it social or governmental and Chloe can't help but blame herself that she's even here in the first place.To make matters worse, in search of some solace and protection, she gets caught in even worse shit than before.How deep this goes, she has no idea, but hell... something tells her she's going to be the one finding out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crimsonherbarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonherbarium/gifts), [spiderstanspiderstan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderstanspiderstan/gifts), [Elsepth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsepth/gifts).



> For Pledge 2018, I pledged to gift 1k words worth of a fic to someone during the month of December. Here's that! 
> 
> Thanks to [crimsonherbarium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonherbarium/pseuds/crimsonherbarium), [spiderstanspiderstan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiderstanspiderstan/pseuds/spiderstanspiderstan) and [Elsepth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsepth/pseuds/Elsepth) for getting me into Detroit: Become Human with their animated conversations and the odd fics I got to beta for them. I enjoyed ~~playing~~ watching the game and especially writing for it. <3 
> 
> I hope whoever reads this fic enjoys it! 
> 
> (If I'm gifting to more than one person, am I to do 1k per person? Hmmm)

A flame sparked from the battered handheld lighter, covered in engravings across its old and weathered silver coating. 

 

It lights a cigarette hanging from the mouth of its user, who is seated at the edge of a building. After doing its job, the lighter is deposited into the front pocket of a leather jacket. The mug of long, beautiful blonde hair takes a drag. 

And exhales. 

Across the night’s sky, plumes of smoke fly, their source being the large fires dotting the horizon, the next one bigger than the one before, the number of them fitting in all the fingers of two hands. 

From behind the figure, a cough and sputters could be heard. Ragged, robotic breathing persists, but across the dark winter sky, it creates no fog. A deep blue gathers at the corners of its mouth, the same from where the coughing originates. 

“N-No,” they mutter, with a low and almost convincingly human voice, each word sounding harder than the other. Almost convincingly human, if it were not for the robotic tune of distortion to it. 

The shadow perched on the ledge turns their head, the cigarette smoke flowing into the open night sky, the cigarette shorter by half its length. With two fingers, they hold onto it, blowing the smoke out lazily, and they wait. 

The voice is incoherent, filled with glitches and hiccups of its own, the voice box no doubt soaked in the blue liquid that’s supposed to be running the business, but is instead drenching everything. 

Cold air suspends the moment in time as sirens blare in the distance, which makes the pause relentless in its torture, and it seems like a long period of time passes before the butt of the cigarette is flicked off the edge. That same figure swings their legs over, away from the edge and towards the android, and stands up. 

Their movements are slow, methodical, no doubt so on purpose, as they walk towards the captive. The moon’s light grant sight to the battered mess of electronics. 

An eye missing, the jaw unhinged on one side, the hands strung up high show off bruises and cuts, some differing in depth and length. Most of them are still running blue and are yet to stop. The android’s body is in a similar state of disarray with its own amount of damage, it's CyberLife issued uniform torn up and disheveled. 

The number on the uniform that signifies the make of the android is nowhere to be found; at a closer look, some numbers have been slashed out and in places, the material where the number was is completely cut away.

“--P -Pl _ ea _ se,  _ no m _ or _ e _ ,” the robot begs, in it's broken, barely understandable voice. The shadow smirks and picks up the pipe that stood just within reach of the android, taunting it with its traces of blue. 

 

The pipe swings high. 

 

~----~

 

The dull thump of a sledgehammer sounded off like a wake-up call next to booted feet.    


  
A figure stood over a body, now almost unaware of its own actions from a moment ago, their eyes wide with disbelief. Looking at their blue stained hands, the figure almost stares right through them, and onto the stained, paved street below.    
  
"Hey! Stop, police!" someone shouts, and heavy footfalls approach the figure.    
  
The shouting breaks their daze and the booted figure recoils then start to run away from the source. The sound of police sirens grow louder, the sounds carrying and bouncing through the alley.    
  


The person throws the hood of their hoodie onto their head, as they take a turn into an alley, avoiding another source of police sirens and lights that they could see further down the previous street. When met with a large wire fence, they hop it with labor, their foot losing footing one time before they find it again and hop over.    
  
Without looking back, it's clear to see and hear that the police have followed without much delay.    
  
The escaper, now dodging bins and dumpsters, utilize their surroundings: once they pass a suitable bin, they knock it over. There are quite a few similar ones down that alley, so once, twice, three times, the third one takes a policeman with it. Two are all that's left to pursue the figure.    
  
The alley ends by going out into a busy street. The escapee runs into the street without much care, managing to bump into both androids and humans. They cross the street and under a wooden fence sits an empty bench, and the escaper makes no pause and leaps off of the back of the bench, onto the wooden fence and grabs onto a low ledge on the building, then managing to scurry up the roof of the building they’ve latched onto.   
  


“What the fuck?!” comes from the street below. 

  
From there, they slide over a vent. Despite relative certainty that the police will find it hard to continue the chase, the figure keeps running.

  
Heavy strides and footfalls echo from the street below as the officers manage to keep trace from the street.   
  
"...grey hoodie under a leather jacket, moving southeast on..." comes from the street, followed by static and the operator’s feedback from the police radio.    
  
"...we have lost an officer in pursuit, requesting..."   
  
No longer wanting to keep this chase going, the figure grinds to a halt in some quiet, and dashes in another direction that doesn’t directly follow the street. They clamber up an air conditioning vent, praying silently it doesn’t creak or fall. 

 

They keep running what with their legs not stopping and in a last ditch effort to make sure they’re going to lose the cops, they jump a ledge, without much care of the distance from one to the other. 

  
  
~----~

  
  
"Forecast didn't mention rain."    


  
Chloe chuckled around her cigarette as she lit it up, "Maybe you looked at the wrong one, Justin. I know what you're like when you get high," she said, blowing smoke from her nose.    
  
Justin laughed, coughing a little at the end as he finishes looking up at the dim, suffocated sky. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t,” he shrugs.    
  
"You ready for today?" He takes another puff of his joint and lets the smoke loose into the air, helping with the city's pollution problem.  A bird caws overhead, almost like it's reprimanding Justin and Chloe for their awful habits.    
  
Yes, sure, totally, Chloe thinks. Totally not.    
  
Chloe shrugs, the leather jacket bobbing up and down with her shoulders. Blowing smoke out in front of her and through her nose, she continues, "That's a bullshit question, one I don't even know the answer to myself."    
  
Things go silent after Justin's response constituting in a yawn. The two of them stand under the small shelter the building's entrance provides, atop the stairs and off the sidewalk, as they stare out at the empty street in front of them. Their gaze follows any car that passes by.   
  
Huffing in annoyance, Chloe scratched at her scalp with the hand holding her cigarette.    
  
Justin, after a little pause, drawls out, "Hey, when do you think they're gonna get here?"    
  
Chloe huffs again.    
  
"Shit, Justin, I don't fucking know. Maybe I would if I were the one that set this entire thing up. You're the one with the brilliant idea to join a gang."    
  
Justin whistles, raising his hands in faux self-defense, "Me-ow, sorry I stepped on your tail, there. Just trying to make small talk."   
  
"Eat it and choke."    
  
Another pause passes. More birds fly by, wind rustles large, old trees that dot the street in each direction, even cars have stopped passing a little while ago. The city seems part of a deserted city left in ruins. 

 

_ Ain’t far from the truth _ , Chloe thinks.    
  
Chloe groans out of frustration, but a little too soon, it seems like. A short and loud whistle alerts the both of them into an alley ahead. A hooded man stood at the entrance to the alley, quickly gesturing once with his head for them to follow him, turning into the alley right after.    
  
And follow him they did.    
  
Chloe and Justin pass through the alley, Chloe looking around, Justin rubbing his hands in the cold and dead November air. The fact the wind was blowing in the direction the alley was formed, making it feel like putting your face down the pipe of a leaf blower while it's full up with snow.    
  
From graffitied walls, to fire escapes, from trash and alley cats and to their guides back, Chloe could have sworn that alley stretched on for far longer than she thought it did because she managed to inspect every detail. 

 

That might just be her nerves talking, or the fact that last trashcan next to the sleeping rat looked the same as the one she saw earlier.    
  
Similar to before, just as Chloe was about to make a noise and ask the person in front of them where exactly in hell where they going, the alley opened up, to the middle of a connected building complex with limited entry. Looking straight up made the newly arrived a little woozy.    
  
Chloe couldn't appreciate the grayness of the sky, at least not today. Nothing about today felt right.    
  
In the middle of the complex was a square of concrete. Rough, ugly concrete, that looked cold and dead, like it wasn't even the same city they were in. The guide walked to the middle, and with two fingers at the corners of his lips, he whistled. Justin winced at the volume. 

 

“Ow.”   
  
With it, out of nowhere almost, came shapes and sizes, all around both Justin and Chloe, which took the two of them a little by surprise. After a moment, though, Justin seemed unphased after a moment and as a shape in a thick leather jacket, similar to Chloe's, approached the middle, so did he.    
  
They joined hands, and the pale man in front of Justin grew a slender smile.    
  
"Justin, my friend, how are you?”    
  
"I-I've been good," Justin replied sheepishly, despite the friendly greeting. The man now has a hand to Justin's shoulder, as their hands are still joined.    
  
"Staying out of trouble, I hope," the menacing shape replied, and at that moment, a few red flags fly off in Chloe's head, which she pointedly ignored. A gang means protection, maybe even some work, maybe even some money. This was a good idea, she tells herself.    
  
The shape steps out into the light to face Chloe, and a shiver runs her down.    
  
"This must be who you vouched for," he asks Justin. The buzzcut and firm brows, combined with the shapely jaw and menacing, sharp eyes with a low and raspy voice give this guy an air about him that gives Chloe an odd impression.   
  
Chloe also thinks he may be pushing his jaw out a little too much, of his own accord. Last she checked, jaws don't reach out that far. Still, menacing is the first thing that comes to mind when Chloe meets eyes with him after shaking the last thought away.    
  
"Yeah. That's my friend."    
  
He smiles again and reaches a hand towards Chloe.    
  
"Great to meet you. I'm Callahan."    
  
Hesitating at first, Chloe finally joins their hands. His grip is steely and cold, and it feels like looking straight at the ground as the rain is pissing down.    
  
"Yeah, real nice."    
  
He scoffs, pulling his own hand away. Chloe tucks hers back into her hoodie. Beginning to speak, he turns away and towards one of the ways out.    
  
"Hopefully, Justin has given you the ropes," he says, retrieving a phone from his jacket pocket, "I don't know if he told you, but an initiation is in order. Starting right now."    
  
Gesturing with his head is enough to get the rest of his gang moving. They all file as he waits for Justin and Chloe. As Justin passes, he places an arm across his shoulders, as Chloe glumly follows behind.    
  
Something smells wrong here, seriously. And no, it's not something around her. 

 

And it's not her, either. Chloe’s checked.    
  
The three of them reach an end to the tunnel they were exiting, and Callahan moves to the right as he lights a cigarette. Chloe keeps a track on him with careful eyes as they join the crowd now forming.    
  
He appears on the other end of the crowd, in the clearing that the crowd is on looking. Taking a puff from the cigarette, he places it back into his mouth, and starts:    
  
"Most of you might remember your initiation, the same one we removed for, well, quote-unquote trial members and you also might remember how stupid of an idea that was." Another huff.   
  
"The last trial member we had before our friend Justin, of course, the same one that was smart enough to try and fuck with what we have made a little... disappearance act. Now, Justin here is promoted to full time, again, quote-unquote, with no initiation and I'm willing to let it slide, since," he stops, gesturing to Chloe, "he's already brought in a new member.   
  
"But, as is usual and customary, she needs initiation."    
  
With that, he moves out of Chloe's sight line, revealing what’s behind him and making her eyes go wide.    
  
On the ground and on its knees was the very thing she hated most in a state that nothing deserved to be in. Its eyes were gouged out, blue blood seeping from the holes made, the hem of its uniform was lined with more of it and the torso has dents and scrapes. The voice box it contains was obviously beaten to a broken state since the "breathing" noise it produced is distorted, cutting out frequently and barely audible.    
  
Callahan gestures with an outstretched hand, a smile on his face. "This is what you missed out on, Justin. Giving it back to the tin cans. Getting rid of this plague," he says, emphasizing his point by shoving it to the ground by its shoulder with the heel of his boot, "Wiping trash off the streets. It's kind of like community service, really."    
  
Someone from the crowd appears holding a sledgehammer and passes it to Callahan.    
  
"Only much, much more fun," he says, as a smile creeps onto his face.    
  
The head of the sledgehammer slams into the thirium pump of the android as it twists onto its back, making a garbled mess. Blue blood splashes onto the ground, with a little speckling his boots.    
  
He stares back at Chloe's shocked face as she slowly realizes what she's gotten herself into. Justin, horrified, is standing at her side, backing away slowly. After enough backing away, he's pushed back by the crowd of hooded members, and he nudges Chloe on accident, which breaks her from her stunned silence.    
  
Tossing the sledgehammer at Chloe, which she catches clumsily, he gestures with an open palm at the mess of parts on the floor.    
  
"You know, I never did get your name."   
  
Gulping, Chloe responds, "C-Chloe."    
  
He nods and takes a few steps back towards her.    
  
"Well, Chloe. You've got something short of four minutes. That’s how long those things last without the pump.” 

 

“Times ticking, sunshine," he whispers, close to Chloe's face, "Are you in, or are you out?"    
  
The cold wind shakes Chloe down to the core as she holds the sledgehammer properly. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees that Callahan is not even sticking around to see what she does, yet all his lackeys are, much to her horror.    
  
They continue watching her intently as the android writhes and tosses about on the floor, blue blood leaking from the corners of its mouth and onto the wet concrete under it. Towards androids, usually, Chloe feels hate and nothing but. Yet, how this one lays before it, she feels nothing but sorry for the thing.    
  
The eyes and the deafening silence of the gang's lackeys pierce Chloe's back like a thousand little knives, sending shivers down her back as each one strikes, again and again, never quite piercing the skin. She feels a sweat at her brow and wonders if she's in too deep. Wonders exactly how much she needs this.    
  
Chloe wouldn't mind going back to hating androids by words, not much by actions. But she goes through with it anyway.    
  
_ He was right. Community service. Yeah. That's all it is... _

  
  
She hesitates in lifting the hammer but shuts her eyes and hopes for the best as she lets it fall.

 

~----~

 

Chloe could barely catch her breath. She could barely hear anything past the sound of her beating heart and ragged breathing.

 

Oh and the police sirens. That too. 

The sirens she could hear on street level just a moment ago were now getting closer and closer to where she was sitting. She knew she had to get the fuck out of here and fast.

Yet, her body could barely lift her and she can not feel her feet, almost as if they’re not there. Her mind is swirling with thoughts and noise and her vision is spinning out of fatigue. Chloe can barely believe herself when the events that transpired play out to her again.

Waiting, the alley, the gang, the leader, the... initiation, as Callahan called it...

Everything after the end of that... android's life is a blur to Chloe. Someone or something must have called the police. Callahan was long gone by the time she had decided to make things final.

Chloe would take it all back, now. Taking a life wasn't worth it. Despite it not actually being a life.

It's close enough? Fuck. 

_ Fuck, fuck, Chloe, good job, way to contradict yourself. _

Her own beliefs and morals aside, she knows she's in some  _ serious  _ shit.

Once she does manage to calm down and retrieve her lungs from where they fell, Chloe lifts her head up to meet the suffocated grey sky again. She rubs the shock out of her eyes and turns her head to down in a brief pause, aiming to fix her balance and get rid of the dizziness.

She stands up with shaky feet, still just a little out of breath from her escapade. Chloe looks left, then right with care, wanting to not to get spotted by any leftover cops, just in case there's still some walking about, still on the lookout, then thanks the sky for the rain stopping. 

After enough lookout, Chloe clambers onto the nearby fire escape and makes her way down, hoping the drop to the ground from the lowest part of the escape isn’t too high. She texts Justin, wondering if he ended up getting caught by the police or not. 

When she lands safely on the ground, her boots splash a muddy puddle. With another look over her shoulder, she yanks her hood on and with both hands stowed, walks her way home through alleys and streets as the sirens ring out far from her.  

Once she’s out of the alley, her phone buzzes far faster than she had assumed it will because usually, it takes Justin a lot longer to answer and even longer now, all things considered. This time around, though, it's  _ not _ Justin, rather a number Chloe doesn’t recognize. A cold sweat overtakes her within the second.

**Unknown: Same place in a week. Be there, or else.**

The text perplexes her and scares her all the same. Chloe can only assume it's Callahan sending her that, but how he got her number is a thought she doesn't want to indulge in.

Chloe sighs and taps her foot as she pockets her phone, waiting on a red light.

 

_ What kind of shit have I gotten myself into? _

 

~----~

 

Chloe shudders against the now cold and rainy wind blowing through the open window she is seated on. 

 

Placing the empty ashtray on the window sill next to her, she hugs her hoodie a little closer. The flame of her lighter provides momentary and limited warmth and as soon as it flickers out, Chloe blows the cigarette smoke out her nose, placing the lighter on the sill as well. 

Her head falls back, and Chloe  _ thinks _ , just thinks. 

She thinks, long and hard, mostly about her day, but as is usual with any and all hard thinks of hers, her thoughts swerve.

Getting them back on track is a practice, which she’s slowly getting used to. 

Anyways. 

_ Fuck! _

How dumb of an idea was it to join a gang?! Whose brilliant idea was it anyways?! Yes, she hates androids and all but doesn’t go around killing them! What kind of gang has an initiation that requires killing an android? 

_ Probably many of them, but that’s beside the point! _

Chloe has found herself in some serious shit, and something tells her she can’t really easily get out. 

Which is really awful timing, all things considered. Even though, these days, bad timing is Chloe’s life policy. 

Pretending not to hear or see anything about the near constant android uprisings and riots, protests, graffiti (which Chloe was especially miffed about, most of those were better than her whatever she’s drawn for her portfolio) and everything in between, both violent and peaceful, was  _ hard.  _

The word ‘hard’ scratched the surface deep enough, anyway, Chloe figured. 

With a sigh, she puts out the current cigarette and, while lighting another one, pays attention to the outside world a little. 

The late November days grew more and more muted, which obviously took a toll on the people and the world itself. Chloe was usually the first to find any will in herself to get up in the morning, which was odd. She, despite  _ everything _ , was driven. But not so much, recently. 

It's almost as if all the color had drained from the world, and another heavy, heavy sigh escaped her and she drags her open palm across her face, wanting to rub some of the weariness out. 

With that, some peace befalls her in a moments notice and Chloe hopes to use it completely. Her eyes dart back to the faint sounds coming from her TV, some basketball game in a league she barely bothered to follow and one that was outside of her own interests. 

On her other side, the faint pattering of rain sounded off against the fire escape directly outside of her window, a view at the adjacent building and the barely ever busy street under the neighboring buildings. 

Chloe soaks up the moment of calm like a sponge would with what’s falling from the sky right now. It lulls her back into a want of naps and warmth and doing nothing else but staying a shut-in and managing to get by with only freelance drawings on the internet. 

But she knows damn well that’s not going to happen. College is still a thing she goes to. Well, that last part at least isn’t going to happen. The first part she is going to partake in right now. 

Chloe steps to the center of the room and reaches for the open beer found on her coffee table, and returns to her seat on the window and takes a long, long drink from the brown bottle. 

 

_ This is going to be one long week _ , she thinks, stubbing out her cigarette into the ashtray. 

 

~----~

 

Chloe’s morning is annoyingly cold. 

 

She shivers under her covers and her jaw rattles like a nutcracker toy gone wild. She swears she shut the fucking window before she fell asleep. Apparently not. 

So she does now, grabbing a spare blanket to cover herself for the time being, as she slides around her apartment, to the bathroom first, to get ready for her classes. 

There’s always that little bit of rebellion that asks her if she wants to ditch. She tells it to shut up and fuck off almost every single time. Almost. 

But hell, most of the times, she understands how important these are. If anything, if Detroit goes to shit, she can just skip town and attempt to get a job with what she learned before it all. She hopes Detroit doesn’t go to shit, mostly due to the fact that Chloe barely has the willpower to do anything that her life might depend on. 

She blinks at herself in the tall mirror in her hallway and adjusts her hairdo (or rather bed hair). The circles under her eyes are getting larger by the under-six-hours-of-sleep night. Chloe chalks it up to an abundance of work, but in reality, it's probably poor time management on her part. 

Not like she’s about to confess to that. 

What with the temperature being under zero, she grabs her favorite coat and trademark beanie in a sleepy daze and with her earbuds, makes her way out. On this morning, and probably many, many other, she’s glad she chose a hands-free mode of transportation: the skateboard. 

The slight incline her apartment building is propped up on makes it easier for her, having to go down. The rattling of skateboard wheels against pavement cracks and seams is a comfortable sound to her, as the cold steel wind whips her face. 

The sky is just as muted as the day before, much to Chloe’s dismay. 

There’s something in her eye and a lining of worry along her stomach. She fucking hates it and despises it how it makes her writhe out of annoyance. Chloe tries to tune it out with music, the loud guitar and drums doing little against the anxiety she feels. 

It's as if she feels like something absolutely  _ will _ go wrong today. 

And that it does. 

Throughout her morning routine, Chloe passes the town square, one that nearby has a completely new and fleshed-out CyberLife store. 

Due to her poor timing, Chloe passes by it and the wrong time, in the wrong place. In that moment, fate does what it does best: toy with Chloe, like a child with a doll they particularly don't like. One could call it unfair, but life is life. 

 

It blows up, starting something bigger than those caught in it. 


	2. Chapter 2

A thunder of footfalls rang through the alley as smoke billowed into the horizon behind them. 

 

The ringing sirens of all kinds provided a background to all of this. The thunder belongs to a group of uniformed men and women flanked by people in outfits much more similar to civilian clothes, the only difference from any other normal human walking past would be the weapons in their hands and the tactical rigs carrying ammunition over their chests. 

A minute few in CyberLife uniforms inside the group held a weapon; something small that acted as a sidearm to the mercenaries or something they had plucked off a police officer in their escape was all they had to go with. Some had blue blood staining their clothes, fear evident in their otherwise very robotic eyes, LED lights ranging from a distressed yellow to flat out and a darkness-piercing red. One of their compatriots, in tattered civvie clothing and smaller rig with certainly not enough height, held a body in their clutches, struggling to bring them along. 

The group was large, numbering in sixteen CyberLife uniforms and eight tactical. They ran through Detroit’s decrepit and dirty side-streets and alleys, obviously in search of solace or perhaps in search of something specific. Behind them, the police sirens became more and more obvious, catching up to their tails. 

“Shit,” one of the armed mercs barked when their head flew back forward after checking their six, “We got cops up the wazoo. I don’t know how long we can keep up on foot.” 

The person directly next to them checked their watch, eyes darting between the watch and what's in front of them, “We still have time to get to EVAC. Just wish we hadn’t brought along the dead weight,” they say, and gesture to their friend, the one carrying someone along. 

“Not dead weight. They were innocent and just caught in the blast. All because someone’s finger got itchy on the explosive trigger,” the mousey girl barked back. Her face was only partially obscured by the hood, one eye covered with brown bangs and her voice was obviously female, whereas, with the others, it was hard to tell. 

“Eat it and choke,” barked back a fourth armed merc out of the group of eight, “That was timed right and you know it. Not my fault she was an unforeseen circumstance.” 

“Guys, cut the crap,” the one merc leading the group’s charge commanded from the front, “We do still have time, extra weight or not. Just shut up and focus on the task ahead.” 

Upon reaching the end of an alley that exited into a wider street than all the others, the group leader raised their weapon, a fist raised to show signals to the back of the pack. The pack all collectively slowed and, when the same raised fist gestured downward with an open palm, they all lowered their stances. 

Amber eyes stared out into the wide, open street, weapon at the ready at their side. They looked left then right, then left again. The street seemed relatively clear of people and the absence of rotating lights dripped ease into the leader's soul. They wait for another moment or two before sticking out two fingers and gesturing for the group to cross in two quick motions. 

When the group started crossing, the masked face adorned with amber eyes flew into a focus and the person to whom they belonged raised their weapon, ready to act in case of interference. Two mercs flanked the group on either side, with two taking the front and two in the back, while the rest stuck with the larger group in the middle. 

The leader’s brows furrowed in confusion and then on instinct hid in a better position. The whirr of blades in the air overhead spawned a small ball of panic in the pit of the leader's stomach. They crouched from view of the sky. 

“Chopper incoming!” called a raised voice, tipping off the rest of the group to hurry. The helicopter flew by in the distance. It could still be called a distance but in truth, it was far too close for comfort and if given enough time, would eventually zero in on them, which only helped apply the pressure harder. 

Down the street from where they came from, the telltale sign of red and blue lights could be seen bouncing from wall to wall in the distance, giving the group’s leader an approximate indication of how hot on their heels the police exactly is. Once the group was comfortably out of sight, the leader patted the merc that stayed behind with them and gestures for them to go ahead. 

They crossed the street with one looking towards the front and the other keeping an eye on behind. They managed to cross without any issue and joined the group soon after. Through the dripping of stale rainwater from the rooves and the stomping of puddles, something pierced, mighty and lancing, through the hearts and minds of all involved; a certain sense of unease and uncertainty. 

It was the worst kind: deadly. 

Each of the mercenaries no doubt had an idea of what they were putting at stake here, yet all of them ran headlong into an operation that would free something as simple and as complex at the same time as an android. Or, well, plural.    


The heated battles that took place in every facet of Detroit were an obvious sign of how complicated this entire situation was, exactly. From androids being beaten and destroyed on the streets every day to them being exploited despite showing obvious signs of both malfunction and a functioning personality, the road for android kind was paved with irregularities, inhumanities, and unfairness, all the hands of their own creators. 

Some, of course, ended up in possession of a human with a soul. So once the obvious signs of a personality and humanity came to fruition, they helped and provided instead of cutting them at the stem, letting something truly unbelievable grow. Something obviously was amiss with their programming and the government held their heads high with this argument, not bothering to provide much more evidence but instead trying to quell the distress where they deemed fit and due.   


For some, those irregularities spawned something that scientists could only really dream of making and it was obvious that some did not think the same way.  


While some folk took to signs and peaceful protest against either the inhumanity of their treatment or the inevitable replacements in their field of work, some opted to be more… proactive. 

Blunt, sharp, bludgeoning, firearms, whatever spills blue blood; you name it, someone used it. 

It was certainly a dark time for Detroit and the city as a whole attempted to hold on to the last dregs of life with its police force. This entire situation had grown far beyond belief and managed to set ablaze so many hearts and minds because it was left unattended; in this state, it distressed even the higher-ups of society. 

Some people chose to keep their involvement in the movements anonymous, and others made mistakes. The people against androids, the ones leading a blue bloodshed campaign against something of their own creation had committed to foul play and dirty tricks from the shadows, as any spineless cowards would. 

The few campaigning for androids in the higher-ups of society had mysteriously ended up dead, found either in a murder-suicide committed by their household android or wound up being found, but still very, very dead. 

Nonetheless, some chose to take the fight elsewhere, rather than turn to cowardly strikes from the shadows. 

A hands-on approach, if you will. 

Which leads us to this very situation. 

The androids these mercenaries have come to retrieve are of high value to their employer. The group functions on the whims of an influential artist in the world scene who’s, by her words, heart rips when she sees these poor things all put to terrible use. 

This group functions on its own, of course, but funds on the side never hurt anyone. They were still active in the fight to save androids and they wanted the merit to show.

Their path was cut off, though, much to the leader’s chagrin. They all settled around the dark walls of the alleyway they found themselves in as a patrol car drove past, the spinning lights a dead giveaway from quite a ways away. 

Their leader, diligent as ever, took pride in getting their plans and escape routes down perfectly. Though, despite the fact that this was merely an unforeseen circumstance, it does not bode well for the rest of their plan. It means there’s a larger focus on patrolling and securing the neighborhood they are in right now, despite there usually not being any reason to otherwise. 

Which means they had found them and tracked them easier and for longer than was anticipated.  _ Fuck.  _

The plan hadn’t consisted of much but it required proper timing, which they were late on the last few alleys, but seemed to be picking up the pace. The leader checks their wristwatch another time to confirm and swears under their breath. All they had to do was reach a certain distance away from their target and double back, covering their tracks in the sewers, complete with a ruse to make the trailing officers think they went in the opposite direction. 

With still a few blocks to go, they couldn’t really afford getting spotted, which was easier said than done. The smaller mercenary, the one carrying the unconscious girl, buckled a little, letting loose a wince. 

“You okay back there?” one of the mercenaries calls, the mercenary being one that wasn't against bringing along the "stray," as the unconscious girl had been dubbed. 

“Y-Yeah. My leg hurts, though,” she replies, her voice tiny.  

“We’re not too far out,” the leader calls back from the front of the pack, thinking about how they managed to keep a run up this entire way. Despite reassuring others with the fact that their escape was close, the fear lining the leader's stomach was hard to ignore, and something felt wrong. 

The leader slowed to a stop, brushing a stray strand of hair away into their hood as they slowed down, the group, in turn, slowing behind them. Their ears perked up unnaturally and the feeling flared like oil to the fire. Panic struck soon after, and they turned to a nearby door, trying to open it. 

“Wha- chief, you good?” one of the mercs asked, frantically looking around. 

“No, no,” the leader shakes their head, eyeing the door up and down, “Help me get in here, otherwise hide.” 

And so they did. Fear struck across the faces of mercenaries as some of the androids behind them ducked and hugged the walls, trying to seem invisible. The girl with a plus one stuck close to the leader, her brows furrowed under her hood. 

The door finally smashed open with a swift boot and the girl and stray flew in first. 

“Quick, get i–” 

Their words were cut short by the police lights and a large surface of gunmetal grey covering the nearest alley exit, a similar wall to it covering their entrance, completely cutting out their escape. Most of the mercenaries had piled inside and soon after followed the androids, but not before hatches opened in the wall of grey, fire sparking from inside and into the group of androids. Panic struck like flint and steel as flesh and blueblood alike scrambled for cover. 

Not all mercenaries were lucky as the first few to have entered and a handful of the extracted sixteen androids didn’t make it from the alleyway. Soon the rip and roar of gunfire stopped and was quickly replaced with booted footfalls. The leader struggled the door shut and searched for something to barricade with. 

“Outta the way!” called one of the larger mercenaries, pushing over a heavy metal cupboard to reinforce the door, “That oughta hold them for a bit. Quick, find a way out!” 

“Already a few steps ahead of you,” echoed one of the smaller, more nimble mercenaries, “I found us a way out,” the thin, hooded girl replied, barely looking up from the screen at her wrist. “The construction plans to this building say there are tunnels connecting this to other buildings in this complex. If we lose the cops there, we might still be able to make it.” 

Their leader, standing among all of them and pacing, no doubt forming a plan, asked aloud, voice raised, “Casualties?” 

“One of our own and… four– no, three androids.” 

The leader takes another look, taking a spin to survey the damages to their numbers themselves. “Reeves. Shit, fuck,” they spat, regret and a sense of mourning building slowly like bile in their throat. 

“Alright, the time to mourn is later and the time to get the fuck out is now; get us to that tunnel and cover your tracks, make it look like what it did when we got in here.” 

Everyone nodded in unison, grief-stricken faces in differing variations all across the group. The androids, luckily for anyone had kept mostly silent. If it was out of shock or lack of programming, no one knew, and few cared, but the silence is well appreciated. 

The same large mercenary from before walked past the mousey girl carrying the dead weight and shook his head. “Can’t believe you still brought her along.” 

The same girl replied with nothing but silence and a pointed look elsewhere. She was starting to think that this idea wasn’t as good as she had assumed it was. 

“Alright, look,” called their leader, standing in the center of the room, “The majority of you, merc or android, I don’t care: dig out something to pile on that door while myself and a few go to look for the exit. We cover the exit when we find it while one of us comes back for all of you, deal?”   


The leader bolted towards the first set of stairs that led both up and down after everyone had given the all-clear. Up proved to be a no-go the moment their eyes landed on the rusted, thin-metal gate, covering the hallway at the top of the stairs. That had both been a stroke of good and bad luck, what with it keeping cops out but also them in. 

On the way down was nothing but darkness, but there was no hesitation. The leader turned on a flashlight, sticking it onto the side of the protective glasses they wore and almost sprinted down the set of stairs. 

“Tanya, give me a direction to that exit,” the leader barks.   


Following closely behind, lights of their own, was the nimble merc from before and another two from the pack. The small merc, Tanya, stares at the small monitor on her wrist more and angles a pistol up in preparation. 

“The floor plans tell me that the room on our… left," Tanya exclaims with fingers aimed at a door, "takes us into another, smaller room which leads into a corridor. Down the corridor, the last door on the left.”   


“Here’s hoping you’re right, T,” one of the broad-shouldered mercs from behind her notes as their gun goes up as they lean against the wall right next to the door. The others follow suit and in a countdown, one of the mercs kicks the door in, after which they all file in, guns at the ready. 

“Clear,” the leader calls after a rudimentary sweep, “Let’s keep going.” 

The small detachment from the rest of the group manage to clear and find a way out. Once they're certain that this is the exit, they send Tanya, the lightest of the bunch to call the rest of the group. Just as the large group starts to pile towards the stairs, the door blows off its hinges behind them. 

A large part of the group had already managed to get down the stairs and into cover but a few of the androids had stalled behind. A gunfight erupts even before the door falls to the floor flat as one of the mercenaries has kept it covered from a far position inside the room. The bullets fly into the first set of incoming officers, bodies tumbling one after another before they stop.   


On the side of the mercenaries, only three androids in CyberLife uniforms lie still on the ground, their LED’s completely shut off. A stray moment of calm overtakes the situation when the mercenary providing covering fire notices that he’s the only one left in the room, still, and all his comrades had managed to escape down the stair well. 

Suddenly, a flashbang flies into the room and the mercenary manages to duck behind cover in time, to the sound of booted feet clattering against the concrete floor. A fresh sound sparks from the direction of the stairwell, evidently the police shooting down into the stairwell.  
“Davenport!” he hears a shout from the stairwell as metal clashes with concrete. To it, he emerges from the cover anew and lays into the invading set of police officers, his gun singing as his hands control it steady and aimed at the police. 

The stream of fire emerges from behind the wall separating the stairs and the room and he moves up with relative care with his weapon aimed at the outside in front of the door. Relative care hadn’t been enough as a bullet lands into his shoulder as he makes the move downwards. 

His heavy-set partner in crime, Perez is the one at the other end of the second stream of fire. Even as Davenport moves past him, the loud exchange doesn't stop. From inside the room below, Grace, the most leveled head in the entire resistance, finishes the head count as they all corrall towards where the exit is said to be.   


Once all the androids had roamed past, Davenport’s eyes landed on their field medic, Alec, who had moved back to the group from their leader and Tanya, tending to a clearly shaken Max, her hands free of the weight she had been carrying around, as it's now placed next to her, the girl still very clearly out of it. Davenport takes a moment to wonder how Max in all her mousey stature managed to carry the girl along but the thought is quickly stirred with the sound of more gunfire and Perez’s hand coming to nudge his shoulder. 

“Let’s get a move on, quick,” he calls, already taking bounding steps towards where their leader had gone into. 

Things went back into a rhythm despite the obvious heat on their heels. The large group of mercenaries stayed behind the group of androids, covering their back as Tanya lead them through corridors leading to their exit, all the hallways forming a rather claustrophobic maze.   


As Tanya helps the cargo and the rest of their group maneuver the underground, the leader takes to clearing the point of emersion by hand. With their weapon raised, they spend time checking through the immediate closest rooms of the building they emerge in. The perimeter is almost clear but the sound of footfalls forces the leader to take a dive for cover as a previously locked door opens by force. 

The clatter of boots and familiar chatter is reminiscent of police but there’s far less coordination and tactics. There’s a furrow of confusion in the leader’s brows but they still force the fight anyways. 

Managing to sneak around one officer, they dash from cover, pinning a foot to the back of their knee, a knife finding its way into the exposed area of the neck. The moment it does, they let the body fall while ducking for more cover and moving to release the sidearm from its place. The sound of the body alerts his compatriot, the leader not quite sure of their number. 

The radio chatter alerts the leader of the next officer’s vicinity and, as that same officer walks through the door, the leader angles the sidearm towards the officer’s knee and knocking him to the ground with a single round, then delivering two rounds to the intricate helmet wrapping around their head. Upon closer inspection, the two round salvo had been a lucky choice, seeing as the intricacy of the helmet exceeded standard law enforcement standards, as further inspection revealed that the armor involved in making it is of a greater quality than usual. 

From behind, the leader hears a steady step and ducks for cover just as a spray of rounds come where they had been a moment ago. Overtop the cover, the leader shoots at the combatant blindly and continues to scurry further into cover. The silence that overtakes the place is almost unnatural and, squinting their eyes, the leader goes to emerge from cover, only for said eyes to meet the barrel of a gun. 

“Don’t do anything hasty, kid,” a masked and disorienting voice orders, “Drop. The gun.” 

Doing as they are told, the sidearm leaves the leader’s grasp and clatters to the floor. They stand up, hands raised, a weapon pointed at their forehead as they opt for silence. 

This next silence, on the other hand, lasts little because, as the captor launches into a short monologue, something from his left attracts his attention and when he turns, gun raised, a three-round salvo peppers him, bullets landing into his lower abdomen, right in the chest and head, one round each. 

The leader exhales harshly, Grace and her trusted rifle coming to their aid. “Everything clear up here?” asks Grace as she does a check of her own before the entire group joins them from the hole they had left just now.    
Reaching for their weapons, the leader dusts themselves off and moves to the outside, “Yeah, just got a little caught up with big-head over there, the fool you just capped. Thanks for the save, by the by.” 

With her eyes straightforward and aiming the business end of her rifle, Grace mutters a ‘don’t mention it.’

From the group of androids disperses Tanya, who their leader calls to her for a moment, lowered nearby one of the murdered combatants from a moment ago and there, the leader points to the brown insignia on the helmets. 

 

Flicking open the device on her wrist, Tanya takes a picture, for evidence, certain she would be able to figure something out with it. 

 

*** * ***

 

In a near-pristine white tower and at its top, sits an office housing one of the art world’s magnates.

A billionaire in a wealthy family of many strings and pulls within the art world and immediately outside of it, due to their influence of wealth alone. One of her feet taps against the pristine white floors as her eyes are trained to several monitors, all tracking the body-cams of the mercenaries under her employ. 

With a sigh, they cycle through the cameras, one of them returning a feed of her most recent purchased job: a committed raid on a new CyberLife facility had gone awry come extraction due to an intervention by a force outside of Detroit Police Department. The squad of mercenaries and entourage of androids, despite being a few short, had all managed to come aboard their evac and take to the skies, flying to an undisclosed location housing one of many of their facilities. 

The shrill and distant screech of tires indicated that, on another screen, the evac had managed to pull through and extract the payload assigned for that specific group. 

Despite plentiful riches, air extraction was rare. The required paperwork and permits had exceeded the capabilities of operating as an illegal mercenary force, seeing as searching for one despite not being affiliated with the group would flash red flags every which way.   


The specific line of androids they had sent after in the newest raid had contained a line of tech to be reverse-engineered and applied to better their own mercenary outfits and further the progress of their research. But this alone does not prove an easy task, judging by the most recent skirmish that one of their best leaders had pulled off. 

Despite her belief in the prowess of this specific mercenary outfit, their skin still crawled at the thought of them lost in nothing but a simple skirmish, the thought of a new threat not alone in making them  uncomfortable and forcing them to plan another seventeen steps ahead. In that same camera, they spot something peculiar, something or someone that does not seem to belong. 

In the hands of her lieutenant's right hand was a girl, knocked unconscious, which sparked an odd interest. 

Among all the pieces, she was the outlier and the game was getting harder to win as is. But, the outlier might come to be useful, otherwise, they had taken this stowaway with them for no reason. 

 

If anything, they hope the outlier proves useful; letting them walk with what they'll know eventually is a tall order.   



	3. Chapter 3

The Detroit standard for weather seemed to have been stuck to rain and clouds for the past two weeks. 

 

Thusly, the cities mood can’t do much past take a nosedive into the dirt, a nosedive so grand that it hit everyone similarly to the way a baseball bat would collide with a skull. The past two weeks have been the quietest in the year and it only sent shivers down the detective's spine and brought along a sense of unease that it spread around like candy. 

In this drowning rain fit only for some sort of biblical punishment, the detective drives her ancient ‘69 Charger into the parking lot, the engine growling menacingly under the gunmetal grey hood as it cruises to its designated parking spot before stopping, engine exhaling as it turns off. 

With how things are right now, the parking lot of the Detroit Police Department is parts empty and parts full. All the closest parking spots are taken, which is fine by the detective. She sighs, taking a step out of her car and placing her hat over long, blonde hair that sits in a ponytail for right now, turning back only to double check the lock on the door after reaching for a briefcase filled with case files on the seat next to the driver. 

The elevator ride up to the precinct is quiet, no one exactly needing the elevator right now since most departments are elbow deep in their work, by now. The detective had just finished a case and was returning from the scene of the crime, fingers itching to submit and get rid of the paperwork this cumbersome case had brought with it. 

After stepping into the precinct proper, the detective notes how quiet it all sounds. Sure, the lack of rush and crowd on the department floor is nice and all but the eerie quiet it takes on is as disarming as it is rare. The detective makes a beeline for her own desk, steps calm and collected, shooting respecting nods to colleagues along the way who had done the same, possibly eager not to break the odd quiet permeating. 

The briefcase thuds into its place under the detective’s desk as she takes a seat, Red Ice case files littering the desk, each one dimming the day even more. Time passes as the detective gets to work and during a particularly boring bout of paperwork, her attention is captured by a booming voice calling her name. 

“Detective Lieutenant Marsh, my office, please,” calls Captain Wells, the precinct’s drunken jewel. 

Once a great man in the force that has served for many decades is now only a shell of his former self, what was once great succumbing to the easing tunes of alcohol and all the pros and cons that come with it. The man did not go by a day without smelling particularly strongly of one kind of alcohol or another and the detective found that his poison is in fact wine above all of the others. 

“Coming, sir,” calls the detective with gloom in her voice as the captain recedes to his glass-encased office, the detective standing up completely to make her way over. Inside the office, the detective sees the captain take a seat in, his hand coming to his chin in a thoughtful manner which is… odd. The detective has rarely seen Wells take an interest to his job after falling into alcoholism and this is perhaps the most serious he's been. 

With knitted brows, the detective steps into the office. “You wanted to see me, sir?” she asks, voice drenched in curiosity, just a hint of exhaustion poking its head out. The captain gestures for the detective to take a seat with a broad motion and she obliges, letting a moment of silence hang between them before the Captain finally sighs, and leans forward, elbows resting on the armrests of his large chair. 

“How are you, Kate?” he asks in a low voice, the tone and sincerity in it disarming the detective for a moment before she blinks her consciousness into place. This time around, she chooses to just lie through her teeth, not letting on that a loss of her partner hit her far harder than anticipated, letting loose a “fine, thank you,” and praying he doesn’t press the issue further. That’s a suitcase to unpack at a date other than here and now. 

“I understand that,” he continues, tone still as somber, “the loss of your partner does hurt, but I’m afraid that I have called you in to say that you are to be issued another partner, provided you wish to continue working in the foreseeable future.” 

The detective takes a moment to think this over, eyebrows furrowed and eyes pointed at the captain, Wells returning the exact same look right back at her. Moments pass and each and every single one spent in silence save for the clicking of the grandfather clock are excruciatingly long and unbearable. The detective couldn’t for the life of her understand why this hit so hard, especially after all the time that's passed. 

Which is of course a complete and total lie. Detective Marsh made a mistake, got too close to her previous partner and ignored the obvious risk that came with and justly suffered the consequences. 

Detective Marsh clamps her eyes shut, sliding down the chair just a little bit and actively willing away the tears that threaten to come flooding out. Soon, she hears the telltale sign of office chair wheels squeaking back ever so slightly. The detective opens her eyes to find Captain Wells up from his chair, aiming a tissue box in her direction. 

With a small sniffle and a guarded expression, the detective takes one, dabbing at her eyes all the while trying to keep her composure in front of the Captain. Sure, she had no ground to expect anything from the Captain and especially not any of this, after considering the fact that he had been the one that told her to stay away, explicitly stating that fraternizing with colleagues is forbidden. She had gone against his word but the Captain had been comforting at a professional level, which, again, was more than the detective had expected, all things considered. 

“I apologize, captain,” the detective starts after managing to settle down properly and the void it's made is quickly substituted with confusion as the detective faces a realization. “I understand you want me to start working again with a partner, but there are no detectives in the force that are not partnered up or currently working a case.”

The Captain nods sagely, the tips of his fingers connected as his arms rest on the desk, “Be that as it may, the way things stand are fine. I’m assigning you a non-human partner, one of the first in the precinct.” 

Almost as if summoned, the door situated behind the detective opened with the casual swish of almost transparent glass stepping aside and in stepped something the detective couldn’t find the words to describe. Fair, perfect skin that seemed far too perfect to be the truth, short, immaculate blonde hair done in a pixie cut, the bangs swept, dressed in a sharp, form-fitting suit with all the assorted markings an android came with, LED display located at the temple and the letters 'VK900' written across the right breast of the suit's coat included.

Half-lidded, sharp eyes darted the room within a split second, to which the detective could only reply with a squint of her own. The LED turns yellow in that exact split second and turns to normal as quick as it comes. The android looks as if it sighs, nodding respectfully towards the Captain. 

“Captain,” she addresses, voice as smooth as the edge of a sword’s blade. Its piercing eyes turn towards Marsh in the next second, “Lieutenant. It will be an honor working with you.” 

“Detective, meet your new partner.” 

The detective looks to the Captain to consider whether she read the designation correctly. Last she checked, VK’s were glorified calculators, made to work in a number-oriented environment but were mostly stuck to office spaces and math classes. 

“Sir, if I may be bold,” she starts, willing to act on this exact confusion and voice it to the Captain, “Aren’t the VK’s made to be assistants and desk-jockeys?” 

Nodding, the Captain responds. “Precisely, this one model being the outlier. There is a chance you have not heard of VK models past the, say, four-hundred, five-hundred mark,” he appends, getting out of his chair to pace carefully, “This model, on the other hand, has all the calculational abilities of a VK model, but is fitted with combat prowess and decision making of a model fit to serve as, let’s say, a government bodyguard.” 

“This,” he continues after a beat of silence in which the detective could only stare, half-and-half in amazement and suspicion, “is the VK900.” 

As the detective sat up to join the Captain carefully, she eyes the android with suspicion, the sliver of amazement gone as she lets it slip through her fingers. Approaching it, she stands within a reasonable distance, enough to comfortably extend a hand in a greeting. From there, she could see a faint hologram projecting across the area in front of one eye, the only light showing in the source. The android’s eyes were vacant, distant, colored a lighter olive color. 

The detective’s eyes dart to the weapon inside the thigh holster of the android and squints, noting exactly how higher tech the android’s weapon is compared to her own. The impromptu staring match continues between the detective and the android, the VK model following her new partners eyes almost directly. The Captain clears his throat behind them. 

“If you’re done attempting to intimidate a robot, Detective Marsh,” he chides, placing his behind into the chair again, “I’d like to discuss the first case you two will be working together, so please,” the Captain gestures to the open seat the detective had taken up before, “Your undivided attention, if I may.” 

Obliging, the detective takes a seat, settling into place with a sigh, as the android moves to stand behind her chair ever so slightly. A case file finds its way to the detective’s side of the Captain’s desk, the thud of it landing loud in the otherwise quiet office. 

“That,” the Captain points, “is the case file for another mercenary attack. The kicker to this one being the apparent disappearance of a young woman that was caught in the blast.” As the detective cards through the evidence inside the case files, she eyes pictures taken from the scene of the explosion, the dark outlines of the blast sourced in using explosives that are much more traditional. 

“The beat-cops that were there on the scene first say that the cameras in the area were tampered with prior to the blast,” he continues to explain as the detective reaches the witness reports inside the case files, “Witnesses say that there was a young woman in front of the CyberLife store moments before it exploded but once they gathered their wits for a closer look, she appeared to be completely absent from the scene of the explosion.” 

“No feed on the cameras?” the detective echoes the last sentence she read in the document, “And in a hundred meter radius?” she voices, “There’s a high chance she was taken because she saw something she shouldn’t have but an even higher one she was just at the wrong time at the wrong place.” 

Humming, the Captain agrees, “This is one of the rare few hits we’ve had across our desks with more technical prowess than the others and I have reason to believe that they are orchestrated by a single unit of mercenaries who had incorporated similar tactics in previous heists.” 

After giving it thought and shutting the case file closed with one hand, the detective gets up with a sigh. “I’ll get right on it, sir.” 

The details of the case float around the mind of the detective as she parts with the Captain’s office and the Captain himself, trailed closely by her newest partner as she saunters to her desk. With yet another sigh, she drops and reclines into her chair and considers the case more.   


The way the group struck and the cargo that was extracted wasn’t anything new to the police department, no, the new part to this case that changed things around was the technical prowess suddenly induced into it all. 

Sitting up properly, the detective looked for a peculiar part of the case in the files, hazel eyes darting from edge to edge, eyebrows furrowed and primed on the printed words on the paper. There’s mentions of a woman, caught in the blast at one point in the files, but towards the end, the pictures show no body, no girl and no, well… _scattered remains_ of a woman. 

A hand goes from the case file to rub at the detective’s forehead, eyes squinting. As it stood, things did not add up. An explanation that popped into her head (past the woman being  _ taken _ ) is outlandish and crazy at best: an explosion of that size, meant only to shock and blast its way past the glass of the CyberLife store, would definitely not have enough force to throw the woman elsewhere, out of sight. 

The detective, hating to admit it, would have to go commit to some field work and let her new partner into her car. Before she has a chance to beckon her new partner as she got up, the android called for her instead, almost startling the detective. 

“Lieutenant, regarding the case,” she starts, her voice steely, “I believe giving the scene a look for ourselves will prove beneficial. My optical receptors are vastly superior to most androids of my make,” she says, standing up to mimic the movement of the detective.   


_ You mean  _ eyes, _ fancy robot?  _ The detective rolls her eyes as she grabs the coat from it’s hanger. “Come on,” she calls for her ‘partner’ as she walks with purpose to her the parking lot and her car, readjusting her holster, quickly as the android paces behind her.  

 

*** * ***

 

The ride over to the scene of the crime had thankfully been quiet, the detective’s partner mercifully opting to stay quiet, rather than engage the detective and attempt to chat, which allowed Kate to crank the music and just pay attention to the road, without thinking about the case or her new partner. 

 

As things stand, she can’t stand the sight of her partner but Detective Kate Marsh is not blind. The robot is attractive and fuck, she  _ knows _ they’re made that way and she’s only human, but there’s something strangely alluring in the android’s piercing eyes that she doesn't want to admit to herself. 

Turning down a one-way street that leads to the scene, the detective sighs wearily, again (again, for what may be the eleventh time since getting in the car), shoving that entire train of thought under the hypothetical mental rug, wanting to unravel that mess later rather than now. 

After the android makes the difficult assessment of them arriving (with the detective throwing her a stink eye), the pair get out of the parked car and amble towards the crime scene, the detective tugging on her hat to counter the light rain of the already settling night time. She flashes her badge at the police officer standing by the markers and with a curt nod, the pair move past. 

Inside, there’s a forensics team getting to work, two specialists on either side of the store, and another set of two located around the very middle display of the store. Behind them, Detective Marsh could spy a woman in a CyberLife uniform talking to a person holding a notepad. The detective suspects it's a colleague of hers and as she gets closer, her suspicions are confirmed. The revelation brings out a muted smirk as she approaches the two. 

The woman who presumably works here– or rather, has worked here– gives Detective Marsh the light of day, while the other detective works hard on the notes in his pad. Marsh smirks, her hand thudding against the back of Detective Warren Graham, a friend of hers from the Academy, from way back when. 

He fumbles clumsily with the notepad, grabbing a more secure hold on both it and the pen before he turns to Kate with a sigh. He spies her with a seriously annoyed look before the facade cracks and he smiles, bringing in Detective Marsh for a hug. 

“Hi, Kate,” he starts, his voice sounding different from when she’d last heard of him, “so weird meeting you here. You the detective working this case?” He asks, gesturing around with a pen. 

Backing off from the hug, a smile permeates on the detectives face as she answers. “Yeah, just had it land on my desk this afternoon. What brings you here?”    


“I was in the area and on-call and I was the first one on scene once it all went down, even helped out in the search for the suspects, but judging by the shoot-out that happened about four blocks from here, I assume they’re long gone.” 

Kate’s eyebrows furrowed, “Shoot-out?”

Nodding, Warren continues. “An unnamed group of paramilitary forces tracked down and cornered the group that stole the androids from this store,” he explains, taking a look into his notepad for details, flipping a few pages back, “They managed to get away using underground tunnels in the building complex and three other bodies of the same uniform were found about another block away from the original site of the shoot-out."

"What's the situation with that, then?"   
  
He shrugs, "Don't know. After the paramilitary forces were identified, the FBI shut the site down and the only detectives with access are higher-ups in the chain of command. Also seems like it's on a need-to-know basis, so us small fry, don't get squat."  
Snorting, Kate shakes her head. "This case is getting complicated."

"You tell me. Look, I gotta get back to this," he supplies, gesturing to the woman that was here a moment ago, "chat later, okay?"   


Detective Marsh takes the words of Detective Graham into consideration as he walks away after a wave, but upon noticing her newfound partner standing a few steps away, she moves to inspect what the android had found on the ground after parting with her friend. 

The detective comes to a stop above her partner to inspect what has the android so tied up. With this, Kate gets to witness the full power of her… “optical receptors.” Even past the scoff, the detective can’t help but notice that the android’s boast had been true: the plating located on the underside of her forearm slid back to reveal a hologram emitter that showed a small screen with text passing by too fast to read, the text spelling out something too hard to understand. From the android’s eye, a similar hologram is committed to scanning the ground, a frame of light with a another, thinner light bouncing around with precision within the confines of the frame. 

Located in a small dusting of shredded and shattered glass, is a footprint, or at least the scrambled remnants of one. The toe of the boot is easy to make out, if you squint and shut one eye. 

“Good find, VK,” the detective looming overhead admits in a low tone, the first praise towards her partner not sitting quite well on the tip of her tongue. 

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” the android fires back soon, the emitting holograms unmoving, “It appears that one or more of the mercenaries had stepped into the store after the explosion. There is a chance I could identify some basic information from the footstep that could help narrow down the specifications of the culprits body, or perhaps the supplier of the footwear, if enough of the print is intact.” Shutting off the hologram from her eye, the VK model stands up properly, “I will archive the data for your later investigation and append any other findings in the future along with it.” 

Nodding, the detective mutters an affirmative and moves to inspect the store further. With a hand to her chin, Detective Marsh attempts to reconstruct a possibility and hunt down more clues by thinking up a scenario that could have unraveled. 

For this, Kate starts from the source. She moves deftly from the back of the store to the front, a determined swiftness in her step and focus set on lock. From in front of the store, Kate stands, attempting to figure out the source of the explosion that caused the glass to shatter. Oddly enough, there doesn’t seem to be any sort of marks, or perhaps a crater. 

The detective’s eyes trace from the outer edges of where the now shattered glass connected to concrete and above the entrance way only to come up blank. The small flashlight did little in locating the obvious source after giving the area around it another one-over, but it revealed an interesting piece of evidence, otherwise undocumented. In a dark nook, nestled in between bins located in the alleyway to the side of the store is a skateboard. 

“Interesting,” the detective thinks out loud, blinking eyes noting down its location for later inquiry, assuming of course that none of the mercenaries rode in to heist a CyberLife store on a skateboard, meaning that there is a chance it belonged to someone caught in the incident. 

Equal parts a chance that it was just left behind there. Still of note. 

With a huff, the detective turns to what’s located in front of the store and checks the furthermost benches, the flashlight revealing nothing of interest. Her gaze wanders to the one, lone trash can located next to the bench right in front of the store, after which, an idea strikes her. 

_ If the attackers had been technologically advanced enough to shut down the cameras in a hundred-meter radius, then maybe…  _

The detective slips on a pair of gloves with a sigh, lifting the lid off the trash can carefully and slowly while the small flashlight sits gripped with her teeth. Inside, the light shines on a black backpack, dirtied and covered to look inconspicuous. Gripping the lid, the detective takes the flashlight from her mouth, turning.   


“I need forensics over here!” she calls aloud. “And possibly a bomb disposal unit, too,” follows, albeit much quieter. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, if you liked it (or didn't, who knows) please leave a comment if you get the chance.


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